The Aura Of Mystery

Well, I haven't been able to get much into the novel I chose for this week yet, but with working all night, perhaps I will now.  I was at odds as to which one to choose next.  First it was going to be Charles Dickens' "Great Expectations" and then "To Kill A Mockingbird" but they didn't feel quite right, so I finally settled on "The Prince and the Pauper," which I read a child's summarization of many years ago...it's basically an abridged, simplified version, but it gave me a lot to think over and for the age, the illustrations stuck.  As I return to it now, I have just had it on my mind a lot and I think about what I am reading now and what I read then.  I remember certain parts that have been making me chuckle as I am remembering them...most notably the part where the two boys - who are so alike in image that they can't be told apart when they exchanged clothing for that first time - are reunited and it is imperative that the royal seal be found and the pauper had been using it as a nutcracker...it would function very well as one, would it not?  It worked for him!

I reread an old favorite fantasy novel of mine, a book by Gail Carson Levine called The Two Princesses of Bamarre.  That one commented on a lot of different things that I enjoyed reading about...first of all, it's always a good thrill to reread old favorite fantasy novels.  I discovered why I love them in the first place...there is the fact that fantasy novels and RPGs are chock full of well-developed characters who through various experiences they go through grow just so immensely and learn more about who they are and who they have, by degrees, decided to be.  It all boils down to my enjoying a good story and seeing those well developed characters and what they decide to do and how they interact.  I love similes and metaphors and the "hidden" things about everything...I love symbols and morals and such, it's just so cool.  I could read one book and give you layer upon layer of what I was able to extract from them all.

Anyway, with the ending of this book, it was just interesting to observe because both princesses went in different directions with their lives than they were originally planning on.  The one skilled at fighting and who was the open defender of her dear younger sister fell ill and the younger, extremely more timid sister ended up being the only one who had enough sense and such to go out and find the cure to her sister's illness, conquering orcs and outwitting dragons and battling gryphons, while searching for the land of the fairies, who she finally learns has the cure.  She is the timid and shy and scared one...she would be the one to stand trembling in the corner for hours after seeing a spider walk by, wondering if it would return.  She would be the one who has never even thought to look outside herself but I find it fascinating that when you know certain things at the right time and understand that you are the only one who can accomplish something in order to protect something very dear to you, than you will go to any extent to do so, reaching above and beyond yourself.  All to protect someone you love dearly.

There is a great deal also that is revealed at the end of the book that I love dearly and hold as a general truth of life.  There is always something to fight, and always something worth fighting for.  Higher beings live lives of danger too, but they battle what they do to protect what and whom they love also.  We are never given a task to conquer or someone to battle that we don't have a chance against in the first place...or that we might not sometime in the future.

Like I said, lots of cool stuff here.  Anyway, on we go.  I'll write more on stuff when I can, I have to go attend to some stuff...but I wonder, who is it I would want to protect?  Why is it that that is something that seems to give a person strength in times when they need it?  What is it about love that creates within a person the desire to give and to sacrifice?  I know that many of these things are so for I have felt them myself, but I often wonder why, how does it happen, why is it this way and not that...I wonder at the logistics of the heavens.  I wonder at who I was before this life.  I wonder at what I decided before this life that makes a difference with what I do now and what I choose.  I wonder why I feel at home in one part of the country and not anywhere else.  All decisions I have made now or then.  (Many of these comments are similarly grounded in certain aspects of my faith, so if they sound weird, I'm sorry.  I'm trying to see what I can see with all that I have at this point though.)  I am always asking questions and one day I hope to have all the answers...haha, there is so much to learn, isn't there? XD

Classic Books Research Journal

02-05-2008

Well, this is the first book that I have been reading and I really ought to have finished it at least two weeks ago, but this is how far I have gotten. The first book is called The Secret Garden and it is by author Frances Hodgson Burnett. Now, I have seen several versions of the movie, so it has been nice to see how it was meant to be from the author's perspective. There is something in the book that I wanted to put down that struck my interest, regarding the idea that there is magic in everything and everyone:

“Good morning, Ben Weatherstaff,” he said. “I want you and Dickon and Miss Mary to stand in a row and listen to me because I am going to tell you something very important.”

“Aye aye, sir!” answered Ben Weatherstaff, touching his forehead. (One of the long concealed charms of Ben Weatherstaff was that in his boyhood he had once run away to sea and had made voyages. So he could reply like a sailor.)

“I am going to try a scientific experiment,” explained the Rajah. “When I grow up I am going to make great scientific discoveries and I am going to begin now with this experiment.”

“Aye, aye, sir!” said Ben Weatherstaff promptly, though this was the first time he had heard of great scientific discoveries.

It was the first time Mary had heard of them, either, but even at this stage she had begun to realize that, queer as he was, Colin had read about a great many singular things and was somehow a very convincing sort of boy. When he held up his head and fixed his strange eyes on you ti seemed as if you believed him almost in spit of yourself though he was only ten years old – going on eleven. At this moment he was especially convincing because he suddenly felt the fascination of actually maki9ng a sort of speech like a grown-up person.

“The great scientific discoveries I am going to make,” he went on, “will be about Magic. Magic is a great thing and scarcely any one knows anything about it except a few people in old books – and Mary a little, because she was born in India where there are fakirs. I believe Dickon knows some Magic, but perhaps he doesn't know he knows it. He charms animals and people. I would never have let him come to see me if he had not been an animal charmer – which is a boy charmer, too, because a boy is an animal. I am sure there is Magic in everything, only we have not sense enough to get hold of it and make it do things for us – like electricity and horses and steam.”

This sounded so imposing that Ben Weatherstaff became quite excited and really could not keep still.

“Aye, aye, sir,” he said and he began to stand up quite straight.

“When Mary found this garden it looked quite dead,” the orator proceeded. “then something began pushing things up out of the soil and making things out of nothing. One day things weren't there and another they were. I had never watched things before and it made me feel very curious. Scientific people are always curious and I am going to be scientific. I keep saying to myself, 'What is it? What is it?' It's something. It can't be nothing! I don't know its name so I call it Magic. I have never seen the sun rise but Mary and Dickon have and from what they tell me I am sure that is Magic, too. Something pushes it up and draws it. Sometimes since I've been in the garden I've looked up through the trees at the sky and I have had a strange feeling of being happy as if something were pushing and drawing and making things out of nothing. Everything is made out of Magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. SO it must be all around us. In this garden – in all the places. The Magic in this garden has made me stand up and know I am going to live to be a man. I am going to make the scientific experiment of trying to get some and put it in myself and make it push and draw me and make me strong. I don't know how to do it but I think that if you keep thinking about it and calling it perhaps it will come. Perhaps that is the first baby way to get it. When I was going to try to stand that first time Mary kept saying to herself as fast as she could, 'You can do it! You can do it!' and I did. I had to try myself at the same time, of course, but her Magic helped me – and so did Dickon's. Every morning and evening and as often in the daytime as I can remember I am going to say, 'Magic is in me! Magic is making me well! I am going to be as strong as Dickon, as strong as Dickon!' And you must all do it, too. That is my experiment. ...”

There is a good deal that I agree with about this whole passage. We all begin somewhere. Those who have never seen some thing will consider it great and especially if a state of innocence is preserved...anything discovered when that is preserved is wondrous and Magical. I also believe that there is a different sort of Magic in everything...something that can't be explained away by simple laws. Even if I can't get a person to agree with me on my own views on the subject, I hope to be able to come to the consensus that there are many wonders in, around, and above the world and the heavens that can't be explained by the reason of a normal man.

There is a power in believing in something strongly, in speaking positively regarding it, in assuming that it is going to happen. Heightened forms of prayer, well-wishings, whatever. It uses much of the same power, something one might describe as another level of faith – faith being the belief in something not seen, but which is true.

There are many phenomena in this world that I can't dismiss in my mind. Things that happen with such recurrence that I won't dismiss them. Things that complicate life like conspiracies and politics and other things that encourage a narrow-minded view on a lot of subjects I try to avoid in certain ways, but in all aspects of a lifetime there is much to be enjoyed and from which we can all learn. I try to be of the open mind that there is always something new to learn, always something new to try or discover. I try to be open to understanding many things and I am able to see things from all kinds of different perspectives. That is one of the gifts of which I am glad to have.

Colin, the boy in this story who had never before set foot outside of his house of Misselthwaite Manor in/near Yorkshire, England, was in this pre-proclaimed state of innocence and his mind was only just being opened to the Magic all around him, and he valued it and appreciated it much. Often, in this state of mind, one can see things as they truly are, and not as they are warped and changed later in life. A beginning, joy in discovery, enjoying watching and being a part of creating some form of life, these are bits and pieces of the Magic that keep the world together.

This is the opening paragraph of the last chapter, entitled “In the Garden.” It is what I believe the author had in mind as the theme of the book, so to speak, that is fully illustrated throughout the full process of the entire book:

“In each century since the beginning of the world wonderful things have been discovered. In the last century more amazing things were found out than in any century before. In this new century hundreds of things still more astounding will be brought to light. At first people refuse to believe that a strange new things can be done, then they begin to hope it can be done, then they see it can be done – then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago. One of the new things people began to find out in the last century was that thoughts – just mere thoughts -a re as powerful as electric batteries – as good for one as sunlight is, or as bad for one as poison. To let a sad thought or a bad one get into your mind is as dangerous as letting a scarlet fever germ get into your body. If you let it stay there after it has got in you may never get over it as long as you live.”